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Monster jellyfish forms ‘alien planet’ for school of fish

This was one of the coolest and most unexpected wildlife encounters I’ve had while doing field research. This impressive beast is known as Anomalorhiza shawi, and it blew our minds, while we were researching coral reef fish ‘algal-eating’ (and, thus, ‘ecosystem-protecting’) behavior in Thailand. Experiences like this are a MAJOR perk to being a marine biologist.

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Special thanks to my amazing partner and incredible photographer, Heather Hillard, for the brilliant still shots.

*Disclaimer: I speculate that this is a true commensalism, since it seems unlikely that the fish/feather stars/crabs harm (or benefit) the jellyfish, but to better understand this, we’d need to probe it with science ;).